Summer Institute

PPOL 550: Innovations in Public Management

This course explores the nature of management itself and then identifies what is distinctive about public management. Among the concepts and issues in this course are organizational culture, management reform and innovation, performance management, and human resources management.

PPOL 551: The Public Policy Process

This course focuses on the policymaking process in terms of key players and factors at the intersection of politics and policy. It covers broad policy concepts and theories, the role of institutions and political actors, and key policy domains.

PPOL 553: Ethics and Public Policy

This course identifies and describes the ethical constructs that underpin policy positions and political issues. Ethics and values are explored in the context of their impact on decision-making and decision-makers.

PPOL 557: Decision Making for Public Policy

When addressing policy challenges, managers need to systematically seek, organize, and analyze pertinent information. While models and theories exist for decision making, this course focuses on the practical application of methodologies in the public policy process. It strengthens students’ decision making skills within the context of public policy through seminar discussions, teamwork, case analysis, and research.

Semester Core Courses (9 credits)

In addition to the summer institutes, students enroll in three other core courses and four elective courses from McCourt School or University offerings. Note: students follow the regular semester add/drop and refund schedule posted on the Registrar's and Student Accounts' websites.

Semester Core Courses

PPOL 552: Research Methods

This course introduces the logic of research design and methods in the social sciences. The goal of the course is to prepare students to formulate research questions and conduct literature reviews; design, analyze, interpret, and report on their research; and to evaluate critically the work of others. Emphasis is placed on the logical bases of measurement, research methodologies, and statistical inference.

PPOL 556: Economic Analysis for Public Policy

Economic principles provide a foundation for and are incorporated into policy development and analysis in a broad range of fields including environmental, social welfare, healthcare, education, and are critical to labor market analysis. This course focuses on how a range of economic principles including consumer and producer theory, social welfare economics, public goods and externalities, market failure, market structure, production theory, and fiscal policy provide insight into and help derive solutions for public policy challenges.

PPOL 558: Management of Program Evaluation

The course objective is to develop students’ abilities in the crucial executive functions of managing the evaluation of policy programs. Although there will be significant devotion to academic consideration, the course is designed to focus principally on the executive practitioner—less so on the scholar. For example, although there will be serious treatment of statistical concepts, the successful student will not become a statistician; he or she will become comfortable and confident with the most important professional usages of statistics. Perhaps more importantly, the course will attempt to “inoculate” the student from inappropriate use—intentional or otherwise—of quantitative techniques. This graduate level class will stress (1) conceptualization, (2) design methodology (qualitative as well as quantitative), (3) conduct (collection of evidence) and oversight of the evaluation process, (4) critical analysis, including a focus on oft-underestimated implementation issues, and (5) interpretation and apolitical communication of findings.

Capstone Project (3 credits)

Each student completes a Capstone Project. This is a substantial paper that demonstrates the student's ability to integrate consideration of analytic, management, and advocacy issues in the pursuit of solutions to a specific policy problem. This project is completed in the final semester of the student’s program.

This course culminates in a substantial paper that demonstrates the student's ability to integrate consideration of analytic, management, and advocacy issues in the pursuit of solutions to a specific policy issue. It is taken in the final semester of the student’s program.

Semester Electives (12 credits)

MPM students expand on the analytical skills they attain in their core coursework and summer institutes with 12 credits of elective courses. Students have an array of elective courses from which to choose at the McCourt School and Georgetown University’s other top-ranked graduate schools. Our expert faculty teach a wide range of elective courses in today’s most relevant policy areas and methods.

Many McCourt School students choose to align their elective coursework with their interests and career goals. While not required, students may choose to focus their elective coursework in a particular area of study like Management & Leadership, Political Strategy & Governence, or Homeland Security Policy.